Lucknow: The Allahabad High Court on Monday dismissed as withdrawn a writ petition filed against the allotment of land in Ayodhya”s Dhannipur village for the construction of a mosque, following the Supreme Court verdict in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute.
The court, however, granted liberty to the petitioners to move a fresh petition with appropriate pleadings.
Two Delhi-based sisters had moved the Lucknow bench of the court on February 3, claiming ownership of the five-acre land allotted to the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board for the construction of the mosque.
Appearing for the state, Additional Advocate General Ramesh Kumar Singh had opposed the plea, saying the plot numbers allotted for the mosque were different from those mentioned in the petition. He also said the petition was filed without ascertaining facts in such an important issue and as such it is liable to be dismissed forthwith.
Justices D K Upadhyay and Manish Kumar expressed concerns over the filing of the petition in a cursory manner without ascertaining facts.
Confronted with the correct facts, senior lawyer HGS Parihar, appearing for the petitioners, realised his mistake and requested the court to allow him to withdraw the petition with the liberty to file a fresh one with appropriate pleadings.
Accepting the plea, the bench dismissed the petition with liberty to the petitioners to move a fresh plea with correct and appropriate pleadings.
Rani Kapoor alias Rani Baluja and Rama Rani Punjabi had said in the petition that their father, Gyan Chandra Punjabi, had come to India from Pakistan during partition in 1947 and settled in Faizabad (now Ayodhya) district.
They claimed that their father was allotted a 28-acre land in Dhannipur village by the Nazul department for five years, which he continued to possess beyond that period. Later, his name was included in the revenue records, the petitioners had said.
However, his name was struck down from the records, against which their father filed an appeal before the additional commissioner, Ayodhya, which was allowed, they said.
The petitioners further claimed that the consolidation officer again removed their father’s name from the records during consolidation proceedings.
Against the order of the consolidation officer, an appeal was preferred before the Settlement Officer of Consolidation, Sadar, Ayodhya, but without considering the said petition, the authorities allotted five acres of their 28-acre land to the Waqf Board for the construction of the mosque, they claimed.
The petitioners demanded that the authorities be restrained from transferring the land to the Sunni Waqf Board till the pendency of the dispute before the settlement officer.
The state government has allotted the five-acre land to the Sunni Waqf Board in Dhannipur village for the construction of the mosque in compliance with the Supreme Court direction in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri mosque title suit.